My Heart's in the Highlands (19 page)

Tilting back his head, Ian groaned with evident frustration before sliding a hand around the back of Hero’s neck and forcing her to meet his gaze.  “You think too much,” he growled, his fingers curling into the hair at her nape. 

Embarrassed and feeling foolish, Hero responded with a grimace.
  “I’m sorry.”

“Ugh!”
  Ian pulled her to him, delivering a brief but fierce kiss that conveyed not only his aggravation but a curious amount of affection.  “Come here.” 

Ian opened his arms and Hero slid into them
, wrapping her arms around his waist.  Resting her cheek against his chest, she sighed deeply with an odd mixture of relief and contentment.  Ian rested his chin on top of her head, his arms coming around her to hold her firmly against him.  “I have never told a woman I loved her before, but for my own mum.  In truth, I had never thought to say them at all, much less feel this way.  I suppose in a sense you are right.  My confession was prompted in part by our situation, but only in that the fear of losing you made me accept the truth far more quickly than I might have on my own.  I can be a fairly obstinate man from time to time.  A soul-baring admission, but there it is.”

His fingers stroked her back, the heat of his body
warming her through the thin lawn of her riding habit.  Hero felt his lips against the crown of her head, against her temple and then her cheek.  “So you’re saying that you do love me then?”

She felt rather than heard
his chuckle.  “Must I grovel at your feet to convince you of it?  Such a drastic step would exacerbate my male pride far more than tender words do.  Besides, you should have more confidence in your own value, my love, and you need to develop some faith in me, as well.  As I have in you,” he whispered huskily in her ear.  “I never doubted your words of love, never thought that you might have said them hastily or without truth and I still don’t.  Believe that this was meant to be.  Destiny, if you will.”

“
Destiny?” Hero asked, pulling away to look up at him curiously.  “I’ve read Plato’s thoughts on the matter.  That humankind were once androgynous creatures split in half to create man and woman and that we move through time with something missing in ourselves, seeking what will make us whole.  That ‘destiny’ will draw you or lead you to your other half.  Your soul mate.  Are you speaking of that sort of destiny, or something more benign?  Because, given what you have told me of your life, it isn’t a philosophy that I had thought you would embrace.”

“In truth, I never did.
  The idea grated against my very masculinity.”  Ian shrugged. “I was always a far more avid advocate of Plato’s lesser known philosophy that ‘love is a serious mental disease.’”

Chuckling, Hero shook her head.
  “Truly a more acceptable ideology for a bachelor.”

Ian laughed as well, the warm affection in the sound and the embrace that accompanied it somehow as profound as his words of love.
  “Aye.  But I won’t be a bachelor for much longer, will I?  I will be a husband in love with his wife, firmly believing that fate brought me to Cuilean for you and thinking that Plato might have been far more clever than I ever gave him credit for.”

Hero sighed
happily, reaching up to caress his cheek.  “You once asked me why I wanted to come back to Cuilean, and there was much more to my answer than anticipation alone.  I always felt, from the moment I saw this place, that whatever awaited me in life I would find here.  The anticipation was in waiting for whatever that was.  I was waiting for you.”

Turning his head to kiss her palm, Ian drew her close and bent his head to kiss her gently.
  The words emerged easily this time, “I love you, Hero.”

“And I love you.”

“Now that we have gotten that all straight, I think we should …”

A pained bellow broke the silence around them and Hero felt a bolt of fear seize her.
  She looked around her, seeing nothing but peaceful nature.  Suddenly frantic, she tore away, spinning from side to side.  “Papa?  Ian!  Where is my father?”

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Papa!”

“Harry!”

Hero could hear Ian shouting in the distance as she hurried up the stairs of the pagoda, searching each floor anxiously while Ian circled the area on foot. 

Where could her father have gone?
   Oh, she should never have let him out of her sight!  How long had they been talking while he wandered away?  How far could he have gotten?  That yell hadn’t sounded too far off.

She reached the top floor of the pagoda to find it empty but the small room had windows on all six walls
, and Hero rushed to them, searching for some clue from this higher vantage point. Rushing to the northern views, she could easily see through the trees to the northwest where the parklands melted into the great lawns around Cuilean and to the gardens. To the east, she could see Ian striding quickly through the sparse trees where the park merged into the thickening forest of the woodlands.  His shouts for her father muffled through the glass as he looked behind trees and up into them, thinking that her father might have climbed or fallen.  To the south, the trees would give way to the orchards but Hero could see nothing more than a hundred feet away. 

Direct
ly west, past the tree line, more than a quarter mile away there was nothing but open land to the firth, and with a horrified cry, Hero saw her father hanging precariously from the side of one of their horses as it raced toward the cliffs.

Dashing down the stairs, Hero screamed Ian’s name and he
turned, running back to her.  Breathless, Hero pointed to the west, her panting gasps inaudible over the pounding of her riding boots on the wooden bridge as she crossed the creek.  “He’s on horseback but it looks like he’s collapsed.  Please, Ian.  Hurry!”

But he was already gone, running
past her in long strides to where they had left their mounts tied.  He was astride and kicking the horse into motion before Hero was even halfway there.  She tried to watch what was happening as she ran to her horse but her viewpoint wasn’t nearly as good as it had been in the pagoda.  She could only pray that Ian made it to her father before the horse reached the cliffs.

Gasping for breath, Hero finally made it to her horse
, but without a mounting block or groom, she was nearly helpless in the long, trailing skirts of her riding habit.  With tears of worry and frustration blurring her vision, she looked around her but found no fallen trees, no stumps to make it easier.  Gathering her skirts high around her thighs, Hero shoved her left foot into the stirrup before dropping them so that she could grab the curved pommel on the saddle in both hands.  Bouncing for momentum, she swung her leg up and over the saddle with a sob of relief that she had made it.

Kicking
Colleen into a gallop, Hero desperately raced westward, wondering what she would find.  Then she saw them.  Ian was bent low over his horse at a full gallop in pursuit, his arm extended and reaching for the reins of the other horse.  He caught them handily and the horses began to slow.  But then her father slid to the opposite side and started to fall.  Ian reached for him, but the distance was too far.

With a cry, Hero saw her father hit the ground.
  Ian pulled up and leapt from his horse before it had even stopped.  By the time Hero reached them, Ian was bent over her father, who was lying prone on the ground. 

Pulling her
prancing horse to a halt, Hero slid off the indignant creature and ran to her father, dropping to her knees by his side.  His eyes were closed and blood was leaking from a gash on his forehead.  “Is he …?  Papa?”

“I fell,” Beaumont whispered crossly
, opening his eyes.  “Can you even fathom it?”

Hero blinked at that, taking his hand between hers.
  “But are you all right, Papa?”

“Fell from a horse!” he shouted
, as if that single point precluded his ability to be well.

“I think he’ll be fine,” Ian assured her as he wiped his handkerchief across a cut on the duke’s brow.
  “Just a few cuts.  I could find no broken bones, though he may have sprained his wrist when he landed.”

“Thank God,” Hero murmured, laying her head weakly against Ian’s shoulder.
  “I was so frightened.  I thought for certain he was going to go straight over the cliff.”

“He m
ight have,” Ian said tightly. 

“I
fell
from a horse!” Beaumont repeated, his body drawn so tautly that his feet rose from the ground from the effort.

“Better a horse than a cliff, Harry,” Ian told him as he rocked back on his heels and stood.
  “Come on, now.”  Ian held out his hand.  “Let’s get you back home and perhaps Mrs. Potts can see to those cuts.  I think the one on your head might need stitching.  And perhaps she’ll have a nice treacle as well.”

Beaumont allowed Ian to help him up though he was still flushed red with anger.
  Even the lure of dessert could not sway him.  “I’d like to say that I need a gun to put that miserable animal down for such a disgrace but I’m not certain if I don’t deserve it more!  What wretched humiliation.”

Ian slapped him on the back in an expression of male sympathy and Beaumont limped away shaking his head.
  “I fell from a horse?  Impossible.”

“Are you sure he’s going to be all right?” Hero asked as she rose.
  “You never can tell with him when he’s seriously hurt.”

“He’s fine,” Ian ground out
, and Hero looked up at him with surprise.  There was a muscle jumping in Ian’s cheek as he ground his teeth.  He looked not concerned but angry.  Very angry.

Confused, Hero laid a gentle hand on his arm.
  “I’m so sorry that Papa has caused you so much trouble, Ian.”

Ian only snorted irritably.
  “
He
is not the trouble.”

Even more confused, Hero wanted to ask him what he meant
, but Ian only stormed off to retrieve the once-riled horse.  Gideon’s saddle was sitting skewed to the side, and as she watched, Ian lifted the knee roll and flap to examine the girth beneath.  He ran his hand up the billet and gave it an incensed tug with an audible snarl of rage.  To Hero’s surprise, the entire saddle tilted and fell to the ground. 

“Ian!” she gasped.
  “What was wrong with the girth?  Was it worn through?”

“Get your father on his horse and get him home, Hero,” he ground out
, slashing his hand through the air.

“What about you?”

“Bugger it, Hero, just bloody well do it!” he barked and Hero’s eyes went wide.  There was frustration and fury in the command.  His eyes, which had held only warmth before, were cold.  This had to be the Ian of years past, the captain in the army, the soldier on a battlefield with deadly purpose.

He looked ready to do murder
, and Hero felt a chill of fear—not for herself but for the first groom he saw.

Reluctantly,
Hero called for her father and helped him keep his balance while he mounted the still-saddled gelding Ian had pursued him on.  Once Beaumont had control of the animal, Hero went to Colleen, gathering her skirts in preparation for mounting on her own once more.

“
Wait!” Ian snapped tersely and strode over, but not to assist her as Hero thought.  In contrast to the ire he had shown moments ago, he now looked unexpectedly rattled.    Abruptly he pushed past her and flipped up the flap on her sidesaddle.  Running his hands over the straps, Ian released a harsh breath and hung his head.  “Thank God.”

“Ian, what is going on?
” Hero asked, confused by those last two whispered words, but Ian only grasped her around the waist and lifted her easily into the saddle.

“Please go, Hero,” he said more calmly
now.  “I will follow and we can talk later.”

An hour later, Ian returned to his room and dropped into his armchair only to realize that the girth of the saddle was still fisted in his hand.
 

His
saddle.

In Harry’s mad escapade to ride off alone, the duke had not mounted his own horse but Ian’s.
  The damage that was done to him had been meant for Ian.

And the damage had been intentional.
  Ian had wanted to believe that these odd incidents were nothing but coincidence,  but now there was no doubt.  The cut was clean across three-quarters of the girth, leaving the last bit to tear free from the strain and pull of the horse’s effort.  Their sedate walks and canters hadn’t been enough to break it away, but Harry’s wild ride had. 

In a way, he was
grateful for the episode and what it had told him.  First, there had been the incident with Hero in Glasgow, which might have been unrelated.  The lamp in the hall outside the music room and the locked dungeon door, if taken as an attack, had included them both.  But in the past two days, while Hero recovered from her exposure and fever, Ian had nearly been thrown from his horse, only to find enough burrs on the saddle blanket to incense his horse, and he had nearly taken a potentially disastrous tumble down the long winding staircase when he had slipped on a spill of lamp oil near the top step. 

Only his quick reflexes had allowed him to catch the bannister before he went down.
  As it was, he had a large, painful bruise on his hip and had strained his shoulder when his own weight had nearly pulled it from its socket.  Boyle had been profusely apologetic but could offer no explanation for the spill.

Those last two were so subtle
that they might have truly been coincidence.  But the previous night, Ian had awoken in the dead of night to find someone in his room.  He had called for Dickson, but the shadow had slipped out the door and vanished before he could make chase. 

And now this.
 

Ian slapped the girth against his thigh.
  It wasn’t his imagination or paranoia any longer.  Someone was trying to do him harm.  For what reason and to what extent, he had no idea.  With the very worst consequences, he might have died from the incidents.  He might have succumbed to exposure in the dungeons.  Falling just so from his horse or down the stairs might have broken his neck.  More likely, he would have been injured in a non-life-threatening manner.  So what point was someone trying to make?

At any rate,
it had become clear that he was the target and not Hero.  He had that to be thankful for, if nothing else, but today’s incident had shown that the mastermind of these attacks cared little for the collateral damage he might cause.